MacBook Pro :: Snow Leopard Startup Freezes At Grey Screen?
Mar 15, 2012
My Snow leopard machine hangs during startup at the screen with the Grey Apple logo. It appears there is a SW issue with my OS X boot partition. Here are facts I have learned:The computer boots fine if I hold option at startup and select my boot camp partitionThe compute boots fine if I attach an external HD with OS X 10.6Running a disk repair from the external HD, I see the following two issues that are repaired. Also, note the last line about boot partitionsAfter this disk repair, the disk will still not boot, it hangs at the Grey Apple logo.Booting in safe mode does not resolve the issue, the machine will still not boot to a desktopBooting in Verbose mode, drivers initialize with the last succesful line being the ethernet drives (I believe) and then the hangup occurs. It is unclear what state the boot process is at on the hangup.
This situation has happen twice in the past few weeks. The first time I did a reinstall of OS X to resolve the issue. Then, the issue appeared again approximately two weeks later. I'm hoping to avoid a second reinstall (And really, avoid this issue in the future). It seems perhaps something in the boot partition table or the OS partition, although disk utility says the partition is fine. I have downloaded Test Disk 6.13 to look at the partition table, but I don't know how to interpret the outputs of that program.
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo), Mac OS X (10.6.3), 2 GB RAM, Boot Camp, Ex HD avail
I have had a string of bad luck with my mac, a couple of days ago the screen started flickering and my mac froze (could still move trackpad mouse, not click). It started up fine again.. It did this a couple times more (had to restart pressing power button). Then it froze evereytime I put the power cable in it. I solved this problem with an PRAM reset.
But now it still freezes up, the screen will start flickering and i can only move the mouse. When i try to reboot it gets stuck on the grey screen. only once every 20 times Ill get into the os.
I have tried a pram reset, holding the power button, safe mode, hardware test (no probs found), starting up without external devices.
It wont boot from the cd if it is stuck on the grey screen...
Could someone may be tell me what to do? thinking about bringing it to the store tomorrow .
I have a mac pro running 10.6.6. Occaisionally startup gets stuck at a grey screen and requires a hard reboot or two. I've not found any correlation between what is plugged into the mac or not plugged in and the successful or unsuccessful startup. It just appears random. I've begun studying the console for anything that might indicate what's going on when this happens. One thing I notice is the following line: 2/2/12 8:37:31 AMcom.apple.launchd.peruser.501[134](com.apple.FolderActions.folders) Path monitoring failed on "/Volumes/LittleWet_02/SFX_aiff": No such file or directory
This line was the last line in the console before the hard reboot a few times, suggesting it might be the culprit. The volume it is looking for is an external HD that was connected to this computer once almost a year ago and never again. I can't determine what startup process is looking for that SFX_aiff directory, or why. Is there any way to tell this system to cease looking for that volume upon startup?
So out of nowhere my unibody MBP (specs, etc below) locked up yesterday while I was watching a video using VLC. It stopped responding to anything so I held down the power button until it turned off. I waited about 10 minutes and turned it back on. Grey screen with spinning cog showed up for about a minute and then kernel panic. Held down power button until it turned off. Tried repeatedly - same results. Won't boot into Safe Mode - still get a kernel panic everytime. It will let me boot the machine into Target Disk Mode. It will boot from my Snow Leopard install disk where I ran Disk Utility and "repaired disk" and "repaired disk permissions" on both the drive and the volume. All the "repair disk" and "repair disk permissions" ended with messages in green type saying that the disk/permissions appear to be OK.
I have an external FW drive used for TM backups for the machine. A fair amount of data has been added since the last TM backup (which was less than 30 days ago) that, ideally, I'd like to not lose by resorting to restoring from a TM backup. It's not the end of the world if the last (roughly) 30 days of data/changes ends up being lost, but I'm willing to work on getting it back up and running without doing an erase and install and then restoring from a TM backup if at all possible.
Definitely if any other information or data is needed from me in order for anyone to assist, please let me know what it is and I'll do my best to provide it.
Hardware Overview:Model Name: MacBook ProModel Identifier: MacBookPro5,1Processor Name: Intel Core 2 DuoProcessor Speed: 2.66 GHzNumber of Processors: 1Total Number Of Cores: 2L2 Cache: 6 MBMemory: 4 GBBus Speed: 1.07 GHzBoot ROM Version: MBP51.007E.B06SMC Version (system): 1.41f2
My MBP(#1) is stuck in grey screen. I've tried 4 or 5 of the steps suggested to get the computer to boot up. I used Target Disk Mode to copy hard disk files to my other MBP(#2), then inserted the Mac OSX install disk, then turned off the MBP(#1) and restarted with the C key held down. Instead of getting the OSX installation, it remained grey and gave me repeating 3-beeping sounds. What does this mean?
This morning, my G4 refused to start up as usual. Instead, I got a grey screen. Here's what I've tried so far and the results: Action: Started from DVD Install disk for Leopard to try an archive and install. Result: No hard drive was recognized for an install, archive and install, or erase and install, i.e., no drives appeared at all in the "Select a Destination" window, just empty white space. Action: Attempted safe boot (Command + Shift + V) Result: Flashing Globe Action: "Repair Disk" from Disk Utilities after starting from DVD Install disk for Leopard.
Result: Received "First Aid Failed" message. Error message read: "Catalog file entry not found for extent. Volume check failed." I can't even get it to eject the install disk (the "eject" key does nothing and there's no manual eject button for this Power Mac). This is a work computer and not having it functional is pretty hobbling so.
I sure hope your day is faring better than mine...To try and make my new issue easier to follow and to save face as I feel like an idiot, permit me to explain in bullet format:
First things first: I was running 10.6.8 SL on my 2006/7 model MacBook pro 15.4 w 2 gig sdram, right now I'm running nothing. When I turn on Mac it goes to grey screen and I see a folder/?/apple symbols rapidly interchanging on screen. This occurred after trying to use TM for my first time as I deleted some items I shouldn't have. In time machine all seemed kosher until the first attempt said not enough space on hd so I decided to only click on sys folder in TM. this was where prefs and files were accidentally deleted from after all. The kicker is my Mac still functioned I just noticed my HD no longer had a name, and a few other issues were happening, but I could access and open files, go online, etc... Post time machine none of that was possible! I tried first putting SL disk in but wouldn't read it, so tried restarting w disk in drive. HUGE ERROR on my part. This is where the grey screen desc above took its place. I looked on iPhone and have followed all available suggestions but have come to realize at some point I must have in error created a firmware Pw. I tried entering it but the lock simply stays put (when I attempted one of many fixes to my problem listed online). So now I'm left not knowing if whatever happened messed w my firmware pw or if I somehow chose something diff as pw but I highly doubt that. In any case, I have all of my life locked into a useless box now and I had thought this is why I bought external and used time machine. I've come to loathe TM. it's not as simple as I had thought otherwise none of this dshould have occurred. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I reset or altogether delete firmware pw, and best way to reinstall.
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
My Macbook with 4 gb RAM won't boot standard, safe, or Recovery.. All three results in grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel which freezes after a few minutes. It also won't boot a bootable Mavericks usb with install package. I can boot single user mode and also view whats going on in verbose.. I am including a photo of where the script stops. PS: I've already tried resetting PRAM and the SMC has been reset as well.
I put a new hard drive into my iMac 24". I could not install OS X because every time I turned the machine on it would shut down in less than a minute at the grey screen and Apple logo - whether the disk was in the slot or not. I finally was able to install Snow Leopard via firewire from a Macbook Pro. It runs fine - but I can only access the iMac Snow Leopard installation from the Macbook Pro. When I turn on the iMac, it still shuts down every time. The new drive was formatted with the Disk Utility as an external drive - since I couldn't get to it while it was in the iMac. My Snow Leopard disk was a full version, not an upgrade.
So yesterday my iMac froze while using iTunes. I had to manually power it off. I turned it on again and it booted fine. I tried iTunes again and shortly after that it froze again. I manually shut it down again. I tried to turn it on once again and it won't load the desktop. It just stays at the grey screen with the apple and spinning thing. I am pretty sure I have to erase and install again, but I am not really sure on how to do it correctly especially since I can't even get to the desktop. My OS is 10.5.8 and the machine is only 2 years old and hasn't really given me any problems before.
macbook pro blue screen with spinning disk, won't start up. my macbook was really sluggish so i ran a hardware test. it said NO PROBLEMS. i did restart. my current login and password were REJECTED. then the macbook went into blue screen and it just sits there and flashes to gray and back to blue and the white lines that make up the circle icon just spin and spin.
I have a HITACHI touro desk 3TB external hard dive connected to my iMac OS X version 10.6.8 Every time i start up the system it stays on a grey screen until I unplug the usb of the external hard drive then the system boots up normally. I have tried connecting different usb cables, plug in to different usb ports, and nothing works. I have other external hard drives and they don't give me any problems. is a pain plugging and unplugging the usb cable.
The other day my 1st gen MBP functioned without any probs, until it suddenly powered down. After I removed the question marks from my eyes, I offcourse tried to reboot it.
But it never makes it beyond the grey screen, sometimes untill the apple logo, sometimes not even that far. Offcours I googled around first to gather some info before I decided to put this problem down on this board. I found this could be a HDD failure, but in those cases, with other people, it could be powered holding apple + s, and doing some checks that way. Mine doesn't even come that far
I have a second hand 1st gen MBP with upgraded HDD and RAM, snow leopard, and coincidently since last week no more battery... so i may have powered down a completely unprepared mac by tripping over the wire, once or twice...
recently a friend of mine offered to update my 2009 MacBook to Mac osx Lion. when I received the computer back from him, it required a rather large update that has put my MacBook in a terrible state.
upon rebooting from the update, it froze at the grey Apple loading screen, and of course I thought nothing of it and gave it a little restart. Since then I cannot get it past the grey screen or the login window. it seems as though I cannot type in my password or click 'sleep' or any option the window gives me. I've been working on this issue all day, and I've tried countless things from the apple support community, with no avail.
I've tried clearing the cache, I've tried safe mode, I've tried the command+option+control+enter trick on the login page, I'm even trying to boot from the install disc my friend gave me...and it's just refusing to move past the grey screen.
Have tried different things that have been suggested....reboot PRAM holding down option command P R etc but nothing yet has worked. Don't have installation disk as MacBook is 9 years old so must've thrown disk out years ago.
I have a MacBook Pro from 2010 I believe with iOS Maverick installed. (MacKeeper is also on there, which I just found out is apparently malware)
So three days ago I was watching Netflix, the image froze, but the audio kept going. Figured my internet was slow, so I waited a little, nothing happened. pressed escape to leave the full screen mode, but nothing happened. None of the keys would do anything, not even the sound or brightness keys. So I did a force shut down by holding down the power button.
I waited a little, then decided to turn it back on. Start up sound played, white screen with grey apple logo and loading gear appeared together with a grey loading bar. I figured that this meant it had to repair something. But after about a minute or two it just went to a black screen/ shut down. I left it off for a day, tried it again, same thing. Next day I tried booting it up while holding the shift key to do the safe boot (I knew it wouldn't work since I already had the grey loading bar anyways), same thing happened.
i just updated efi firmware on my macbook pro (late 2011).. and my mbp always starts with a grey screen (not white screen anymore) and the apple logo with a status wheel evertime i turn it on.
We own a very old model macbook and the startup screen appears as grey and an icon appears in the shape of a file with a question mark in the middle and the startup does not proceed from there.
Every few weeks my iMac will suddenly freeze, the screen going black or white or pink etc. The only way I can get the computer back is to hold down the power button to force a shutdown. Then after a restart everything is OK for a few more weeks. Usually it occurs when I am on the internet. I click on something and suddenly the computer is frozen. I am on OS X 10.6.8 and usually use Safari. Ironically when I opened this forum 5 minutes ago there was a similar sounding problem at the top of the list!
Info: iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), FCE 4 + FCS 3 . . . Little Knowledge, Many Opinions.
Had to force quit a number of applications to shut down computer, restarted it but froze on opening. Shut down with the power button and now it won't get past Gray screen with rotating dial (thingy)...tried the safe boot option but this seemed to get stuck after identifying some issues.
I click on the hd hard drive and change the settings to no one can read or write now I had problem to open the computer as soon I start it became gray screen so I re-stall the software and as soon I back up the computer is asking me the password I type it and can't enter after keep asking me the password is wrong
i changed the name of the hard-drive for other reasons, and i guess i must have somehow erased the two which show up in the login box. And, i cannot locate the disks.
Info: MacBook Pro, Other OS, no start up disk to be found
